For there are many things, concerning the development of which even wise men betake themselves to diviners and oracles.”  I have adopted Taylor’s translation of this eloquent passage, because he was well acquainted with the theological systems of antiquity.  The whole passage is a useful comment on this chapter of Plutarch and many other passages in him, and may help to rectify some erroneous notions which people maintain of the philosophical systems of antiquity, people who, as Bishop Butler expresses it, “take for granted that they are acquainted with everything.”  The passage about conscience contains, as Taylor observes, a dogma which is only to be found implicitly maintained in the Scholia of Olympiodorus on the First Alkibiades of Plato.  Olympiodorus says that we shall not err if we call “the allotted daemon conscience;” on which subject he has some further remarks.  This doctrine of the sameness of conscience and the internal daemon seems to be that of the Emperor Marcus Antoninus (ii. 13):  “It is sufficient to attend only to the daemon within us and to reverence it duly,” and he goes on to explain wherein this reverence consists.  In another passage (ii. 17) he says that philosophy consists “in keeping the daemon within us free from violence and harm, superior to pleasures and pains, doing nothing without a purpose, and yet without any falsehood or simulation, without caring whether another is doing so or not; further, taking what happens and what is our lot as coming from the same origin from which itself came; and finally, waiting for death with a tranquil mind, as nothing else than the separation of the elements of which every living being is composed.  And if there is nothing to fear in the elemental parts constantly changing one into another, why should a man have any apprehension about the change and dissolution of the whole? for it is according to Nature, and nothing is bad that is according to Nature.”  Bishop Butler remarks (Preface to his Sermons):  “The practical reason of insisting so much upon the natural authority of the principle of reflection or conscience is, that it seems in a great measure overlooked by many who are by no means the worst sort of men.  It is thought sufficient to abstain from gross wickedness, and to be humane and kind to such as happen to come in their way.  Whereas, in reality, the very constitution of our nature requires, that we bring our whole conduct before this superior faculty; wait its determination; enforce upon ourselves its authority; and make it the business of our lives, as it is absolutely the whole business of a moral agent, to conform ourselves to it.  This is the true meaning of that ancient precept, reverence thyself.”

This note does not apply to any particular case, when daemons are mentioned by Plutarch, but to all cases where he speaks of daemons, divination, dreams, and other signs.]

[Footnote 182:  Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius, the son of Metellus Numidicus, was consul with Sulla in his second consulship B.C. 80.]